Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity and anti-virus provider, has headquarters in Moscow and employees in countries throughout the world. The company had over $600 billion in revenue in 2015.

Late Tuesday, according to Reuters, several U.S. employees of the company were interviewed by the FBI. “Federal Bureau of Investigation agents visited the homes of Kaspersky employees late on Tuesday in multiple U.S. cities, although no search warrants were served, according to two sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the FBI probe.”

Today the Senate Armed Services Committee released a defense spending bill that would prohibit the U.S. Defense Department from using Kaspersky software. A summary of the legislation mentions concerns that the company “might be vulnerable to Russian government influence.” According to Senator Jeanne Shaheen, author of the amendment including the prohibition against using Kaspersky software, “ties between Kaspersky Lab and the Kremlin are very alarming.”

In May, five high level intelligence officials, and the acting FBI chief, testified before the Senate intelligence committee that they do not trust software from Kaspersky. According to an article in The Register, “The question of Kaspersky came courtesy of Senator Marco Rubio (R‑FL), who asked them all if they trusted the Russian-built security software. The answer was a unanimous no.”

In December of 2016, a top manager at Kaspersky in Moscow, Ruslan Stoyanov, was arrested on charges of treason, along with a senior Russian intelligence officer. He has not been seen since then. Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the information security department of the FSB, Russia’s national security service, was also arrested on treason charges.

Roger Stone, Jr., political strategist and conspiracy theorist, is scheduled to testify July 24 in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee regarding the investigation into ties between the Trump team and the Russian Federation.

Stone is a longtime associate of Donald Trump who has been involved in politics since working on Richard Nixon’s infamous Committee to Re-elect the President. He was partners in a Washington, D.D. lobbying firm with Paul Manafort and Charles R. Black, Jr. that served many high paying clients, including corporations, trade associations, and foreign governments.​During the presidential campaign, Stone bragged repeatedly that he had contact with Guccifer 2.0, the hacker that is now known to be a group made up of members of the GRU (Russian intelligence service) working for the Kremlin to help the Trump campaign Additionally, Stone predicted last summer that there would be an “October surprise” that would damage the Clinton campaign, and suggested that John Podesta would be a target of damaging leaks, before stolen emails from Podesta began appearing on Wikileaks.John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, testified in closed session before the House Committee today. Roger Stone said the following in an email to Politico, regarding Podesta:“With John Podesta appearing before the committee I do feel it is essential that I have the opportunity to rebut his serial lies. I may not be able to sue a member of Congress but I sure as hell can sue the f--- out of Podesta. The claim that I had knowledge of the hacking of his email by WikiLeaks in advance is a demonstrable lie.”

Stone posted a message on Twitter in August suggesting that Podesta would soon be the target of trouble.

On October 7, WikiLeaks posted stolen documents from Podesta, some of which may have been doctored to damage the Clinton campaign.

​Earlier on October 7, the Obama administration released a report describing Russian Federation hacking of the Democratic National Committee. Later in the day, a video from 2005 was released, which contained audio of Donald Trump bragging about assaulting women. Very shortly after that, the Podesta emails were posted on WikiLeaks.​An article in The Hill describing Stone’s contentious interactions on Twitter can be found here.http://thehill.com/homenews/322431-roger-stone-claims-legal-back-channel-to-assange

UPDATE​: This article from Business Insider has additional information about Deripaska. The article, from 2009, explains that Deripaska was banned from traveling to the U.S. due to his suspected ties to organized crime, but was allowed in twice in 2009, "on trips arranged with the blessing of the Bureau (FBI). In addition to directly meeting with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, he also went to Detroit to talk cars."

The Business Insider article quotes a Wall Street Journal article, which is hidden behind a paywall.

​On March 22 the Associated Press reported that before he became Donald Trump’s unpaid campaign advisor, Paul Manafort had secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to benefit the Putin government through public relations. Manafort developed a confidential strategy plan in 2005 to influence politics, business, and news coverage in the U.S., Europe, and former Soviet republics in favor of Vladimir Putin. During the time he was employed in this endeavor, relations between the U.S. and the Russian Federation were worsening under President George W. Bush.Manafort is under investigation by the FBI for his activities before, during, and after the campaign.Who is the Russian billionaire who hired Manafort to do public relations for Vladimir Putin?Oleg Deripaska is a 49 year-old international aluminum business owner, with degrees in physics and economics. His wife’s parents are Boris Yeltsin’s top advisor and Yeltsin’s daughter. He is close friends with Vladimir Putin.According to Forbes his net worth was $28 billion in 2008, but he lost a great deal of it in the downturn of 2009. Forbes estimated his wealth in 2015 at $3.3 billion, and $4.9 billion in 2017.In a 2005 memo to Deripaska, Manafort wrote that the model he created “can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success.” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The goal was to “re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government."The New York Times reported in May that Deripaska offered to cooperate with Congressional committees investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but that Congress had turned down his offer.The increased scrutiny on Manafort’s relationship with Deripaska has brought Senator John McCain’s activities with Russian oligarchs representing Putin’s interests. According to a 2008 article in The Nation, Rick Davis, Senator McCain’s campaign manager and a partner with Manafort in the lobbying firm Davis Manafort, received several million dollars to help run the 2006 independence referendum in the Balkan country Montenegro. Top Montenegran officials told U.S. diplomats that Davis’s work was paid for by Russian business interests tied to the Kremlin and operating in Montenegro.Deripaska has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Associated Press for their reporting on his purported relationship with Paul Manafort.The Associated Press article can be found here.https://apnews.com/122ae0b5848345faa88108a03de40c5a/manaforts-plan-greatly-benefit-putin-governmentThe New York Times article can be found here.https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-paul-manafort.htmlThe 2008 article from The Nation can be found here.https://www.thenation.com/article/mccains-kremlin-ties/The Politico article about Deripaska’s lawsuit against AP can be found here.http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/05/15/russian-oligarch-deripaska-manafort-238419

In May Representative Al Greene of Texas appeared on the floor of the House of Representatives to ask his colleagues to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump for obstruction of justice. Greene suggested that the firing of FBI Director James Comey was enough to begin the process. As Greene said:

"For those who do not know, impeachment does not mean that the President would be found guilty. It simply means that the House of Representatives will bring charges against the President. It's similar to an indictment but not quite the same thing."

Representative Greene received death threats after his speech. Capitol Police are investigating.

Representative Brad Sherman of California has drafted a resolution calling for impeachment.

Today Congress held two important open committee hearings relating to the Russian Federation’s interference in the U.S. 2016 election.

House Intelligence CommitteeFormer secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson testified before the committee about the hack of the Democratic National Committee server in 2016, and the attack on the voter registration databases of 21 states, and the FBI and DHS response.

Senate Intelligence CommitteeThe Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing with two panels of witnesses.The first panel consisted of three experts in cyber security with direct knowledge of the situation in the election of 2016:

NBC News producer Marianna Sotomayor reported via Twitter that NSA Director Mike Rogers met with the Senate Intelligence Committee this evening in a closed session inside a Secure Compartmentalized Information Facility (SCIF). The meeting occurred after 7 pm Eastern time. Sotomayor reported that it is unusual for the committee to meet in the evening, and that the meeting had been added to the schedule late in the day.

Last Wednesday Admiral Rogers declined to answer some questions posed by members of the committee in open session, telling the committee that he would be willing to answer the questions in a closed session.

The committee will meet with Attorney General Jeff Sessions tomorrow, in open session.

Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in open session Tuesday, June 13. He will likely be asked questions about the firing of FBI Director James Comey – was he involved in the decision to fire him, and was he aware of the circumstances of meetings Comey had with the president, which he described in testimony before the committee in open and closed sessions last week.

AG Sessions announced March 2 that he would recuse himself from any matters relating to the presidential campaign or to the investigation into the Russian government’s interference in the election. Sessions was the first U.S. Senator (and for a long time, the only one) to endorse Donald Trump for president.

The recusal came about when it was discovered that Sessions had lied under oath during testimony during his confirmation hearing. In addition, he also failed to disclose meetings with Russian officials on his SF 86 form, necessary to obtain a security clearance.

Photo: Jim Watson/Getty Images​Many networks will carry the Senate committee hearing today. If you watch MSNBC, Fox News or CNN, you will get commentary before, during and after the hearing. If you want to watch without commentary, your best bet is the Senate Intelligence Committee feed.The Wall Street Journal will have a live link, but will be behind a paywall.

James Comey’s statement, released one day in advance of his testimony, regarding his meetings with President Donald Trump, can be found below. The link to the statement is below the video in the first link above.